"You brought him up to Battle School, didn't you?"
"Sister Carlotta, I'm on a leave of absence right now. That means I've been sacked, in case you don't understand how the I.F. handles these things."
"Sacked! A miscarriage of justice. You ought to be shot."
"If the Sisters of St. Nicholas had convents, your abbess would make you do serious penance for that un-Christian thought."
"You took him out of the hospital in Cairo and directly into space. Even though I warned you."
"Didn't you notice that you telephoned me on a regular exchange? I'm on Earth. Someone else is running Battle School."
"He's a serial murderer now, you know. Not just the girl in Rotterdam. There was a boy there, too, the one Helga called Ulysses. They found his body a few weeks ago."
"Achilles has been in medical care for the past year."
"The coroner estimates that the killing took place at least that long ago. The body was hidden behind some long-term storage near the fish market. It covered the smell, you see. And it goes on. A teacher at the school I put him in."
"Ah. That's right. You put him in a school long before I did."
"The teacher fell to his death from an upper story."
"No witnesses. No evidence."
"Exactly."
"You see a trend here?"
"But that's my point. Achilles does not kill carelessly. Nor does he choose his victims at random. Anyone who has seen him helpless, crippled, beaten--he can't bear the shame. He has to expunge it by getting absolute power over the person who dared to humiliate him."
"You're a psychologist now?"
"I laid the facts before an expert."
"The supposed facts."
"I'm not in court, Colonel. I'm talking to the man who put this killer in school with the child who came up with the original plan to humiliate him. Who called for his death. My expert assured me that the chance of Achilles not striking against Bean is zero."
"It's not as easy as you think, in space. No dock, you see."
"Do you know how I knew you had taken him into space?"
"I'm sure you have your sources, both mortal and heavenly."
"My dear friend, Dr. Vivian Delamar, was the
surgeon who reconstructed Achilles' leg."
"As I recall, you recommended her."
"Before I knew what Achilles really was. When I found out, I called her. Warned her to be careful. Because my expert also said that she was in danger."
"The one who restored his leg? Why?"
"No one has seen him more helpless than the surgeon who cuts into him as he lies there drugged to the gills. Rationally, I'm sure he knew it was wrong to harm this woman who did him so much good. But then, the same would apply to Poke, the first time he killed. If it was the first time."
"So . . . Dr. Vivian Delamar. You alerted her. What did she see? Did he murmur a confession under anaesthetic?"
"We'll never know. He killed her."